


Tim Drake is the saddest person I’ve ever met

by unluckyloki



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: (yeah she's his only big sister but shhh), ANYHOW we're here to get that Damian - Tim relationship fixed, BUT they're there if you really squint and it can be read as platonic, Cass' is Tim's best big sister, Damian has enhanced empathy, Gen, References to Depression, Suicidal Thoughts, absolutely NO batcest here ever, and makes a discovery or two about his family, and what's actually in there makes Damian feel...concerned, just you look at it, kay maybe some ships you know i'm weak for timkon, like it's not fixed-fixed in the end but the first step is taken, most importantly - everything he thought up about Tim is wrong, no better cure than a nameless Magical Villain who Casts A Curse, no ships here though, they're all a family, wow did i write a short story while procrastinating for my bigger project
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-11-24 17:04:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20911088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unluckyloki/pseuds/unluckyloki
Summary: Damian laughed at a magical villain and got cursed with an empathy spell for that.For a few weeks he is forced to feel everything the people he comes in contact  with do, and none of them know.Damian is ready to brave through it, no matter how inconvenient it is, but there are things he was not prepared for.For example, Drake and all that Damian has to re-evaluate about him.





	Tim Drake is the saddest person I’ve ever met

**Author's Note:**

> So I saw [this ](https://doc-squash.tumblr.com/post/188045205414/sometimes-thats-all-you-need)comic by the wonderful [doc-squash](https://doc-squash.tumblr.com) and I couldn't stop thinking about it. About how nice it would be to have this !in canon! for Tim & Damian - but also completely impossible because of all of the history they have. So, my brain started coming up with the ways it could still exist in as-much-as-it's-possible canon universe and here it is.  
(also disclaimer!! The last dialog is heavily influenced by the comic and therefore I do not in any way pretend to have came up with those lines on my own, a lot is taken from doc-squash)
> 
> Tim's depressive\suicidal tendencies based on comics and you can read more on them [in this post](https://sohotthateveryonedied.tumblr.com/post/159078601638/hi-so-ive-seen-a-lot-of-posts-lately-where-you)
> 
> I know the ppl who are subscribed to me are waiting for my series to continue but this thing wouldn't let me go, so I had to write it. Pls bear with me.

Damian absolutely agreed with Father that magic was the worst. Especially in the hands of an inexperienced magician who tried to become a villain in Gotham City.

Actually, catching the villain didn't bring Damian any troubles - the magician kind of did all of Robin's job himself. While laughing menacingly through his monologue, the wannabe villain slipped and fell, screaming in agony the moment he tried to move and not being able to get up. All Damian had to do was to call the ambulance and police and wait.

When the paramedics arrived and the magician was examined while being cuffed, Damian couldn't help but laugh out loud at the idiot's predicament. It turned out that the magician had fractured his leg in two places. How ridiculous was it?

The magician, however, did not share Damian's mirth. He looked up, his eyes blazing, and proclaimed:

_'Thy find my suffering funny?_

_From now on, thine life will not be sweet as honey,_

_Feel what others feel,_

_I command the curtain from other's emotions to peel.'_

The police took the man away, and Damian was left standing in the street, air around him buzzing.

''That was a piece of horrendous poetry,'' Robin remarked, seemingly for no one.

He didn't feel particularly different when he arrived at the Cave, but then, when he recounted all of his deeds of the day to Father, he felt his stomach drop with worry.

''Was there anything else?'' Father's emotionless voice was asking, while Damian tried to find the source of the feeling.

''Not anything in particular,'' Damian said.

''Any injury?'' Father pressed on, and the worrying feeling in Damian's stomach became almost physically unbearable.

''None!'' he answered, quick. ''I swear, I'm not hiding anything!''

A feeling of relief flooded Damian. Relief and fondness.

Damian did not feel relief, nor did he feel particularly fond of anything at the moment.

A feeling of dread that was entirely his own washed over him next.

Damian excused himself and left to his room, pretending to go to sleep, but calling Raven instead. The woman owned him a favor after the last mission Damian accompanied those ridiculous Titans on, and he was going to use it.

Damian sneaked out of the Manor to meet up with her, and what he heard wasn't good. It turned out that the good-for-nothing magician did curse him, and his tasteless poetry meant what it said - now Damian would feel what others did, it was some kind of enchanted empathy that was going to force him to feel others emotions like they were his own.  
The curse was simple, but badly done, convoluted and too mixed up with his own inner energies to easily remove. Raven decided to leave it like that, promising that it'll wear off in no more than a few weeks.

It was good that Damian had that favor Raven owed him, because with it he managed to persuade her to stay silent about his current predicament. Not only being under the curse would inconvenience him, he also didn't want the others to know and baby him about it. Especially when Damian could actually feel the pity in them, and he was not looking forward to it.  
A part of him couldn't help but feel curious. The curse could be useful, like for the emotions of the criminals they apprehended daily, with Damian knowing their intentions. So he let it stay for patrol purposes, and not because he wanted to know what Father actually felt for him.

The next few days brought all kinds of eye-opening discoveries.  
Damian had started his day with Pennyworth and found out that behind the man's cold facade, there was so much care for the residents of the house, that Damian felt breathless for a moment.  
The amount of affection Richard felt for him left him flustered, and he found out that behind Father's stern gaze there was always something fond, even when he scolded him.  
The others, the more extended Bat Family that Damian didn't interact with as often because they didn't live in the Manor, were no less of a surprise. Todd's temper, for instance, was even more unstable than Damian had ever envisioned. Anger in Todd was like a burning flame, fed by the remarks or even looks the others gave him, shooting into an all-consuming fire when the man thought he was being mistreated or not taken seriously. Father had an uncanny ability to add to that flame, and it was confusing at the begging, how the intentions that Damian felt behind his father's words were misunderstood by Todd and made him angry. Cain, thankfully was out of the country for some time, so Damian and his secret curse were safe - he was sure she'd know about it after only just looking at him.

And then there was Drake. He hadn't been to the Manor for the first few days that Damian got the curse, so it was relatively calm, but then Pennyworth informed Damian that Drake would be joining them for dinner and there was this stern kind of worry radiating from the man, and a stinging hurt underneath when he asked Damian to behave. Damian couldn't look him in the eye after what he's felt, that guilt and hurt in Pennyworth making Damian agree with anything the butler asked.

Like, agreeing to tolerate Drake. Which didn't mean Drake would tolerate _him_, right? Damian didn't exactly brace himself before the meeting, of course he didn't, that would've meant he was weak. Or scared. Which he wasn't.

Damian lost himself in sketching for a while, so when Pennyworth called Damian to join the others at the dining room, Damian completely forgot he was supposed to get ready to meet Drake and feel the amount of hatred the previous Robin harbored for him.

When Damian entered the room, Richard stopped his conversation with Drake to greet him. There was fondness radiating from him, and Damian turned to meet Drake's eyes next, getting ready for the inevitable waves of malice coming off Drake.

There wasn't any.

With a startled gasp that Damian managed to stifle at the very last moment, he realized that there was no hatred in Drake when he looked at him.

There was caution. It also felt like Drake was bracing himself for the meeting, too.

But there was no hatred whatsoever.

Instead, there was a nothingness, some kind of a void, cold and empty, pulling at him.

And then Drake smiled at Father, who approached him for a greeting. When Father's hand covered Drake's shoulder and squeezed, the pull in the middle of his chest receded a bit, but came back tenfold when Father went on to take his place at the table.

Drake's face in no way indicated what Damian felt in him. Throughout the whole dinner, Drake talked to Richard, who was on his right, smiled at Thomas' jokes and bantered with Todd fondly, but the cold void in his chest wasn't going anywhere. It was still there when he complimented Alfred's cheesecake, still there when Father smiled at him, praising his work on the last case, still there when Richard tousled his hair and when the whole table, Drake included, had gotten into a heated debate about the best Shrek film.

Damian didn't participate in the conversations, not only because he wasn't usually very sociable, but also because he could barely swallow around his food when the hole from Drake's chest transmitted to his.

It was too much like when Heretic pierced him with his sword, and even though there were no injury in his chest, he couldn't fight off the feeling.

He was really tempted to reach out and touch Drake, to confirm that there was no physical hole in him. But that, of course, was foolish, because the others would've known of such an injury and Drake wouldn't be here, right?

Only after the dinner and the film marathon were finished, and Drake left with the two older ex-robins, did Damian breath easier. He finally allowed himself to put a hand on his chest, where the cold void was during the whole dinner.

He still couldn't believe that Drake didn't hate him. And also, what the empathy curse made him feel. That void was so strong it made all of the others' emotions seem dull, taking all of Damian's attention. What even was it?

Damian decided he didn't want to know. It would be better to avoid Drake for the next few weeks, as long as it takes the curse to wear out - he didn't want to feel _that_, whatever it was, again.

And he totally wasn't curious.

At all.

  
***

  
The next time Damian met Drake was at patrol, one day after the dinner.

And he didn't mean to, but still ended up gravitating closer to Red Robin.

It was purely to satisfy the empirical need for truth in him, he told himself. Damian still didn't fully believe that Drake did not hate him, maybe what the enhanced empathy picked up during the dinner was just something out of the ordinary. Therefore, of course, a thoughtful research needed to be conducted, to satisfy a purely scientific curiosity.

So Damian patrolled side by side with Drake for the night. On the outside, Drake had given no indication of having noticed, even though Damian _knew_ he did, by the emotions - _surprise, caution, irritation_ \- that got transmitted because of the curse. 

There was no hate.

The cold void was still in the center of his chest, and when Damian got close enough to feel it all, it knocked the breath out of him. He followed Red Robin until the end of patrol, through the apprehension of a few petty criminals and a drug deal bust, and nothing changed.

It wasn't any better the next day, too. Drake was functioning just fine, at least it looked like that, but Damian had caught a glimpse of _something_ in his eyes when Drake thought no one was watching.

The cold, nagging feeling in his chest that was transmitted form Drake's didn't go anywhere, either. It sucked away all of the other feelings, not giving way to joy or even anger, making all feel irrelevant and bland.

The feeling was uncomfortable, left Damian feeling numb for hours after Drake went back to his apartment. But he found himself unable to just stop seeking the ex-robin on patrols.

Damian didn't know why. He more or less believed now that Drake did not loathe him, because not even once had he caught a glimpse of it in him.

But he still didn't understand what the void in his chest meant, and why Drake was feeling like that, and, more importantly, how could he still function and pretend to be okay when it was there, in the middle of his chest, barely giving him a moment to breathe freely?

Damian had started to watch Drake closer and came to a horrendous conclusion that Drake must have simply gotten used to it.

He wondered if Richard knew, especially when the three of them were left alone in the cave, when he felt Drake's mood shift after Richard gave Damian a hug and praised his Robin work for that day. Damian almost expected the hate to come then, evidence that Drake actually did loathe him, but instead he felt overwhelming nostalgia, a yearning for something that was long gone, a soft, warm feeling sprinkled with sadness. 

Drake turned away when Damian looked up at him, and the void came back, sucking in all the warmth and softness Drake had found in himself while watching the scene.

Damian wondered how one could get used to it.

Damian wondered about many things.

***

It was the end of the second week when Damian got involved.

He's volunteered to be in the same group as Drake, and the Red Robin didn't even feel surprised about it anymore - he felt resigned. 

The case was simple, but required a lot of people due to amount of goons and different equipment their local underground fight club-slash-drug-cartel had. A part of the mission was set aside for every group, with Batwoman leading theirs.

It all didn't go according to plan, as it often did in their line of work - there were more goons than anticipated, there were firearms where there were supposed to be none, so everyone's focus was scattered. For a long moment Damian enjoyed the flow of the fight, no other emotions but anger and agony around him, and the laser-sharp focus of his own mind that helped him to kick and evade and get thought the battle unscathed and victorious.

He looked around just in time to see a stray bullet hit one of the goons, exactly in the head, and how then the man toppled down the ledge where he was standing and fell, all the way to the ground. Red Robin rushed to the scene, incapacitating the shooter with one blow of his bo-staff, and then went to the edge of the roof.

Drake looked down the ledge, and there was no fear in him, no worry.

Instead, Damian felt a longing, as if Drake wished to have something that the man down there had.

Drake wanted to be in that man's place, Damian suddenly understood. The goon was shot in the head and then fell 10 stories down, and Drake felt a longing in his chest to have that instead.

Seconds were dragging by slowly, and Drake was still standing on the ledge.

Damian didn't know what to do, so he screamed. Started hurling insults and throwing any equipment of his he could reach. The first batarang hit Drake in the shoulder, the others did not reach the target. Anger flared in Drake, at least something real, something that wasn't a longing to disappear, and then Drake was jumping headfirst into the fight Damian tried so hard to initiate.

Damian screamed and screamed and screamed until his voice was raw and Richard was pulling him away from Drake and stopping their petty squabble.

(okay, maybe not so petty, there were lips busted, blood spilled, bruises to be found the following day)

Richard ended up dragging both of them to the Cave for a medical checkup and a thoughtful chewing out. Drake tried to protest, tried to say that it was Damian's fault, but Richard didn't listen, told Drake that he's older, told him to be better about it. Instead of the horrible feeling that Damian felt before, there was hurt now, stinging and bitter.

Drake was sent to his room, Damian - to his, and the feeling that Richard's words were unfair stayed with Damian even after Drake's proximity to him ceased and the curse did not transmit it anymore.

But Drake stayed at the Manor for the night, and that was what mattered.

***

The next morning, at breakfast, Damian learned something new about the curse.

It turned out that, if the feeling was strong enough, Damian could hear it as words.

Drake was wearing the fake smile that Damian learned to see through and hate during the last few weeks, and he was talking to Richard and answering Father, but inside, Drake's subconsciousness was screaming at him.

_He wasn't needed here, it wasn't his place, not needed, not his place, not needed, not his place, not needed, not his place._

Damian knew this feeling, felt it himself too often, especially in the beginning, especially when he saw how Father was with the other Robins and how different he was with him. He still got it sometimes, when Father and Richard shared a memory he was not a part of, when Father reminded Drake of some old case, or looked at Todd.

But he's never thought that _Drake_ of all people would feel like that.

Even after Drake left and Damian's cursed empathy didn't read his anxious desire to get out anymore, the tension Damian felt didn't go anywhere.

He felt like everything he's ever known or thought about Drake was fake, and even with the magically enhanced empathy he still wasn't sure he understood the ex-robin at all.

But maybe, just maybe, they weren't as different as he's imagined.

And maybe, just maybe, he didn't really hate Drake, too.

The realization kept him up at night, and the thought about how suicidal Drake felt just a day ago, on the rooftop over the dead body of a goon, made Damian get out of bed at sunrise and get to the Cave to lock in on the Red Robin's location.

Drake's tracker was in Titan's Tower, so Damian took one of the smaller jets to get there.

He'd come up with a plan to tell Drake that he'd been sent there to get him by Father, and was almost ready to start lying about a new mission, but when he finally found Drake, he was stunned into silence.

Drake and the other Titans from his generation, the Superman's clone and Wonder Girl and Impulse were all laying together on the floor in front of a TV, in a pile that would have been more proper for puppies than teen-aged humans. Drake was in the middle of it, his head on Wonder Girl's shoulder and his legs thrown onto the clone's, Impulse draped over him. 

The void that Damian hadn't stopped feeling from Drake since the beginning of the curse was barely there. Instead, a feeling of tranquility washed over him - for the first time in almost two weeks Drake was calm, felt safe and relaxed.

It all changed when he turned to see Damian standing in the doorway.

That was the first time that Damian felt real anger flare in him, like that of a wounded animal, gathering all strength left after the cold void sucking at his heart. There was an angry, possessive feeling rolling off Drake - a stubborn one he wasn't going to give up.

_You can't have them_, Damian felt everything inside Drake scream, _you've taken everything else from me, but you can't have _them_._

It was the first flare of emotion that wasn't just momentary, that lasted and was felt deep to the core, and Damian felt like sobbing in relief because there was still something left in Drake that could feel.

And feel he did, the possessive , desperate feeling in him that was ready to fight to the death for what he felt was his made Damian turn around and flee in an almost primal terror.

He went home and wondered about what the curse read in Drake.

Unfortunately, he did not have enough time to dwell on it, because as soon as the jet entered the Batcave, Richard was opening it's door and asking Damian to get out.

Richard was also in full Nightwing gear.

''What came over you?" Richard was asking, dismayed. "Why are you so hell-bent on fighting with Tim?"

Richard's disappointment washed over Damian. The fact that the two of them were fighting hurt Richard, but the worst part was that he wasn't even surprised that Damian would go out of his way to pick a fight with Drake.

At least that's what he thought happened.

"I wasn't trying to start a fight! I _wasn't_! I'm just. Just. I'm not very good at team building," Damian said and felt offended at how eagerly everything in Richard agreed on it. "I wanted to learn."

There was a long pause and Damian started to feel his cheeks heat up, but then Richard said a soft and small '_oh_', and the inner struggle in him disappeared, settling on something warm instead.

Damian felt even more embarrassed by how much happiness what he said brought Richard, but suffered through a hug without any protest.

Richard ended up promising him to talk to Tim and arrange a ' Robin internship on team building', as he insisted on calling it. Richard was giddy and happy and it transmitted thought the room when the two of them changed and was still there when they headed back up to the Manor.

Richard was happy, believed that the two of his younger successors were about to become friends and bond, and Damian didn't want to disappoint him, he didn't, but he couldn't help but ask:  
"Do you think I've taken Drake's place from him?"

The happiness in Richard sizzled out in an instant, the afterthought of it filling his heart with suffocating smoke.

"Did Tim say something about it?" Richard asked strictly.

"No! No, he wouldn't! I just thought... He's not living in the Manor, even though Father is back. He didn't even want to stay here for the night yesterday."

Instead of an angry, protective feeling that was slowly rising in Richard, one of shame arose instead, taking every space in his chest and gnawing at the pit of his stomach.

"It's not your fault, Dami," Richard said softly, and there was sympathy in him that Damian absolutely did not want. "You deserve Robin."

It made Damian all warm inside, how much Richard believed it to be true.

"But Tim also deserved more explanation from me, back then," Richard continued. "I've made mistakes, I should've talked to him more, should've listened. It was just a very difficult time, I'm sure that by now he's understood what I meant."

Richard was completely convinced in what he's just said, and, suddenly, Damian was filled with irrational anger the source of which he could not determine.

"Have you ever talked to him about it?" he asked Richard, his tone bitingly cold. "Then why do you think that he understands?"

Guilt flooded Richard to the brim, but Damian did not want to feel it, so he stomped up the stairs and all the way to his room on his own.

He spent a few hours sketching Titus, with Alfred the cat sitting on his lap. The cursed empathy did not work on animals, but Damian didn't need it to know what his pets felt for him - he knew they loved him. They did not hide their joy or sadness behind the fake smiles, like _someone_ did.

When Damian finished the second page of his new sketchbook, he heard a soft knock.

Richard came in, bearing gifts of Damian's favorite vegan cookies that Pennyworth made for him. Damian felt ashamed for his outburst earlier, but not enough to try to apologize or explain. Richard didn't expect him to, that was one of the reasons Damian believed him to be the best. He told him, instead, that Drake had agreed for Damian's presence in the team and will be waiting for him in the tower.

Sending him off, Richard radiated hope so potent that Damian felt like it could've lifted the plane he was in.

Damian wasn't sure if that hope would pay off. 

***

Damian arrived ahead of schedule, because he got bored in the plane and boosted it's speed to maximum, so the Titans didn't expect him and no one was there to meet him in the hangar. Instead, he creeped carefully to the main part of the Tower and listened to Drake lead a meeting explaining that Robin would be joining them for training.

''Please, be civil," Drake asked, everything in him sounding tired.

The atmosphere in the room was far from that, tempers flaring. Damian's enchanted empathy caught up on caution, bitter, stale anger, and a feeling of unfairness. 

"You do realize that if he tries to kill you again, we won't just stand and watch?" Wonder Girl asked, and Damian understood that the anger was hers, even if she reigned it in well.

"He hasn't tried that in a while," Drake was saying placatingly, even when the hole in his chest was throbbing. "It'll be all right."

"I can come up to him and say 'if you just look at our Timmy, I will stomp you with my hooves'," Impulse said.

"Bart, I am so taking memes away from you," Drake said, and the laugh in his voice was genuine.

The others laughed, too, and the atmosphere in the room eased up a bit. 

Impulse felt glad. This was exactly what he's planed, and Damian understood with a surprise that Impulse was not an absolute imbecile as he's previously thought.

"But, real talk here," the clone-Superboy started, "if he starts something, he's _so_ gonna get it."

"Kon, please," Drake sighed. "He's a kid."

"Doesn't mean he hasn't gotta be held accountable for his actions," the clone scoffed, and there was anger in him, and a protective feeling he was desperately trying to hide.

Damian chose to go back to the hangar and fake his arrival anew, pretending like he'd just gotten there and making as much noise as he could. He wasn't worried that the Titans would be aggressive towards him, he knew well that Drake had the capability to reign them in, but he didn't want to give them a reason to think he'd come meaning harm.

After that, everything ran surprisingly smoothly. Damian joined the team on a few missions they had, did everything that Drake told him and didn't complain.

The next two days that Damian had spent on the team were, well, enlightening. First, Damian discovered that Drake did not, in fact, achieve complete tranquility by joining his friends at the Titans Tower. What he witnessed in the playroom must have been an exception, because the void was back, still in the middle of Drake's chest, dulling his other emotions. Damian would've thought it was because of him, maybe that was Drake's reaction to him, if not for how he's arrived - he was sure Drake did not know he was around to listen, but the void was already there.

It was there even when he's stayed around his friends, when they were fighting together or training or having pizza. However, it was admittedly smaller than when Drake was at the Manor, so Damian made a mental note about it in his imaginary research paper on Drake and his weirdness.

There were also moments, especially in the early mornings when Drake still wasn't fully awake, when he and Damian shared a space and it was peaceful, when another side of Drake's weirdness flared up. 

Damian witnessed it for the first time when the clone entered the kitchen, loud and fully awake, and Drake was thrown off for a moment - surprised, shocked to see him, the void inside of him filling with half disbelief and half painful, crushing grief. Drake had looked at Superboy and everything inside him hurt, and he couldn't believe what he was seeing, couldn't believe that he was alive.

Drake felt something like that about Impulse, too, even though the undercurrent of emotions was different from the ones connected to the clone, those ones with something burning in that grief that Damian could not understand.

That was another thing that happened more than once - Damian felt like sometimes Drake could forget about them being alive and would be surprised by seeing them, living through the cycles of grief and acceptance, again and again and again.

But the last straw was when Drake pushed Wonder Girl - _wonder girl_, the one who was invulnerable! - out of the way of the blast and took the hit himself.

That mission ended up with Drake having fractured ribs and Father flying in to get him and drag him back to the cave and into Alfred's medical care.

Damian went with and was fully expecting Drake to return back to the Tower after the check-up, but Father put his foot down and ordered Drake bed-rest for a week, all in the room that was his in the Manor.

Drake disagreed. 

Father disagreed further.

It was the first ever shouting match between the two of them that Damian had witnessed and all he could do was hide in the corner, not daring to interrupt.

"You don't even need me here!" Drake screamed, meaning that he wanted to be needed, wanted to hear Father say that, but felt like he didn't have a place here anymore, didn't want to be a charity case out of forced necessity, meaning he felt like he was a burden, and many other things.

"This is for your own good!" Father screamed back, meaning that he worried, didn't trust the Titans to provide better care for Drake, that he was going to hurt himself further, meaning that Father wouldn't survive losing him, and and many other things.

It felt like Father and Drake were speaking different languages and could not understand each other.

Father still won.

Drake still went to his old room, the one that was cleaned out by Pennyworth and devoid of any of Drake's messy personality.

Drake lay into the bed there and stayed.

They took his laptop, so he wouldn't work on cases. Didn't let him work on the papers from WE, too, asking him to rest.

Without anything to do with his time, Drake just lay there on his bed and looked at the ceiling.

At the beginning, Damian would follow Pennyworth to the room and stay at the door, looking at Drake. But, after a few days, it became unbearable - the void in Drake's chest expanded, filling in his whole chest, leaving Damian numb to the tips of his toes.

They didn't understand - they were slowly killing him.

Damian couldn't stand it anymore. He went to Father and tried to persuade him to let Drake go to the Titan's tower. Instead, Father misunderstood everything.

"That's enough, Damian," Father said and he felt irritated and maybe a bit angry. "That's enough of your and Tim's squabbles. This is his house as much as it is yours, and he'll stay." 

How didn't Father see that Drake didn't feel good at the Manor, that he felt the most at peace around his Titans friends? And that the Manor would depress him even further, that it was unbearable for him, that Father's request and Drake's inability to say no to it would have dire consequences?  
Damian didn't know how to explain that without admitting that he's been lying for the past few weeks, so he ended up stomping angrily out of the Cave.

That was the day when Cain visited, in Gotham only for a day. She was the first person that's managed to get Drake out of his room and the first one to get a smile out of him.

(Damian might have followed them around the house. Discreetly)

"I missed you, Cass," Drake said while tightly hugging her goodbye. "Please, come back as soon as you finish your training."

Drake was already drowsy and tired and Pennyworth called him away to take the next round of medicine, so that left Damian and Cain alone.

Cain walked closer slowly and put her hand over Damian's heart.

"You know now," she said, looking at him with her deep eyes.

It was foolish to believe that Cain would not see that something was off, so Damian wasn't even trying to deny it.

"Is he always like that?" he asked instead.

Cain looked away for a moment.

"When we met, he was. Lighter, " she finally said. "Not for long, though."

She must have felt their conversation finished after that, because she made a move to the door, but Damian latched onto the lapels of her jacket desperately, whispering:

"You cannot go, you need to stay! They will listen to you, he needs out of this house, he is not okay!"

Cain looked at him, emotionless at first. But then, warmth and fondness for him flooded her. There was a challenge in her smile.

"Little brother sometimes needs to save big brother," Cain said, patting Damian's head. "Go help him."

With that, she left.

***

Damian withstood a whole day before he was back at Drake's door.

This time, he came without Pennyworth, carrying a tray he confiscated directly out of the old butler's hands.

"Drake, you missed dinner," he said, carefully keeping his voice blank.

The numbness washed over him as soon as he stepped over the threshold. Drake didn't turn to him, his head turned away.

"M'not hungry," was all that he said.

"You haven't left your bed for a day," Damian pressed on.

All of the progress Cain's visit brought was lost. The void returned tenfold and was increasing in size.

"Just tired," Drake said, his voice emotionless and numb.

Damian put the tray on the bedside table. The tray made a loud clanking noise that did not even faze Drake. 

Damian felt his own anger raising to battle the numbness he was feeling from Drake. He felt like he wanted to shake him, and maybe scream as long as it took for Drake to feel something.

He did neither of that - instead, in a momentarily fit of determination, he pulled at the duvet Drake had wrapped himself into and slipped into the bed, exactly behind Drake, his hands snaking around the older boy.

For the first time, Damian felt fear in him. An expectation of pain, Drake bracing himself for a fight, getting ready to get hurt. 

And wasn't it a blow to the gut? Wasn't that what Damian's hand had always brought, what people had always expected of him - for him to be cruel, for him to bring pain and suffering and nothing more.

Damian felt like crying and he hid his face in Drake's shirt. He didn't know whose feeling that was, his or Drake's, and he frankly didn't care.

"Um, Damian?" Drake asked, confusion reeling through him, when after a few minutes nothing happened. "What are you doing?"

"I think you've just been-" Damian did not know how to say 'depressed' without sounding suspicious, so he decided on, "- cold."

"Um, okay," Drake said cautiously, still hopelessly confused.

"And robins flock together for warms," Damian added.

It didn't explain anything at all, but it broke something in Drake. Damian could practically feel the ice crack, how Drake momentarily shook, how the muscles in his whole body relaxed.

"Okay, then, robin," his older brother said, and his voice was a bit more warm, though still endlessly tired. "Good night."

"Good night, robin," Damian mumbled into Drake's back, squeezing him in a hug.

And it wasn't a cure, Drake wasn't suddenly all better. 

But.  
  
It was a start.

**Author's Note:**

> When Damian woke up the next morning, the empathy curse was no longer there.
> 
> I have [tumblr ](https://unluckyloki.tumblr.com)where I sometimes erratically reblog stuff   
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> 
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